Humanitarian
by deadlyfuzzies
Summary: Based off the Spielberg movie, from the point of view of an invader. Written while watching War of the Worlds at three in the morning.


Humanitarian

It was wet down there. One of their pipes - the ones which carry the hydrogen oxide compound to the dwellings - had burst, creating large pools in the room. It was a curious thing - that they should build their dwellings above ground but then contradict themselves by then deciding to go below. As a whole, I'd noticed that the lot of them had a very hard time making decisions, and followed each other around in great herds without really seeming to know where they were going, other than away from us.

I was last to enter and we paused to look around ourselves. No doubt the area had been cleaner when there were people living within, although many of them lived in squalor. So, one really never knew. Especially with this species, whose members seemed to have a difficult time grasping the concept of logical behavior. But it was little matter to us. What drove my two companions and I was simple curiosity about how they lived. They seemed to have some basic feeling, almost bordering on emotion. I had to admit; my favorite part of our mission so far was watching our science unit experiment on some of the samples we had picked up – their reactions were quite amusing, as most of them seemed to have a strange affinity for making very loud and comical noises. But beyond the majority, which just tended to make on loud noise in the same pitch continuously, there were the more fascinating – the minority. Some would just stand and stare silently, often excreting a fluid from their heads that our scientists gathered, and found to be a solution of hydrogen oxide and a salt. Others attempted to make contact, making a variety of very sharp sounds. They understood nothing which we attempted to communicate to them, however, making them appear even more excessively stupid. Their military even attempted to come at us with simple gunpowder! Imagine – they still used that, while we barely remember the time when our superior species used such a thing!

I said nothing to my comrades, but there was something rather endearing about them, especially the young. I would have liked to take a young one and domesticate and train it, but I'm sure that my superiors wouldn't have approved of such a thing, especially while we conquered. Their body fluids – a red one in particular – contain properties that help us to grow our own native food supply, so it was doubtless that we would breed them, so as to eliminate the need for food to be shipped from our own planet. That's one of the reasons this planet was so enticing – perfect climate for farming and, as long as we bred them well, an unlimited food supply!

The hydrogen oxide was not unlike a liquid we have on our own planet, and perfectly safe to drink. It also had a fresh, soothing taste that all of us quite enjoyed. As we explored the dwelling, one of my comrades even put his mouth to the broken pipe and sated his thirst with the lovely, cool liquid. And we had seen it above ground – in long lines like an open aqueduct along the ground, and large pools. Most of the liquid that was above ground, however, surrounded the land and was full of salt, much like the excretion from the heads of these creatures. It was not so good to drink. However, we were very envious of these creatures having this liquid constantly at hand, even when it didn't fall from the sky! We must pump it from the ground, as the supply which falls from the clouds is far insufficient to sustain both our race and our planet.

The underground dwelling, beyond the abundance of the marvelous liquid, held many fascinating things from the lives of these creatures. I found a strange thing which seemed like a sort of vehicle, with two wheels. I spun the wheels and it fell from where it stood in the corner, but I quickly pushed it back up again. I myself found it bothersome, but perhaps these creatures saw it as amusement. Imagine – such low life forms playing games or having fun! Quite hard to imagine one of those strange little things, with only two legs, overly long arms, huge torsos and tiny heads participating in a sport! They'd be entirely unable. However, I supposed that they had their own means of play or fun, if they could even fully grasp a game more complicated than throwing rocks or spinning wheels. I suppose that was one of the things I found so endearing, almost sweet in a way, that they should barely grasp the most basic of concepts, like infants. And they seemed to think themselves so grand and secure!

As I looked at the metal-and-wheels, one of my comrades found a box. It was full of images on paper, crude photographic technology, but efficient enough. He shifted through them and pulled out an image, with a look of interest.

"What is it?" My other comrade moved past me to look over his shoulder. He made a noncommittal huff and handed it to my partner, who looked at it for a moment, and passed it to me.

It was an image of a female, who held on her leg one of her young. We had only collected a few samples of the creatures at such an early stage – the first stage after birth. Both had expressions on their faces that we hadn't witnessed yet – I wondered if the alien expressions were ones of joy. The young had it's mouth open in what seemed to be a laugh. I thought suddenly of my own child, my daughter, who was at an age now where she was just learning to do that very thing. I had left her behind with my female partner, and had promised to send her a small token of this planet to play with.

For a long while I stared at it, looking hard at the female's eyes. Did this female have a male partner, gone somewhere? Was she still alive? Was the infant?

For a moment, I thought of my own daughter, but our ship let out its call, to signal that we were moving on from this place.

I put the image down, and climbed out of the dwelling.


End file.
